Cold, White Snow
by HiddenCamellia
Summary: She fell off a cliff and somehow survived. In the middle of winter. In a dead forest. Without anyone.


**Credits/Disclaimers: Only the idea is mine, everything else belongs to their respective creators.**

Consciousness came steadily but broadly. It was akin to waking up to a matte but lit up sky after a long rest. Bland brightness resulting in an ache behind her dark eyes. She felt rested and not, at the same time. Unfortunately, Mikasa soon realised that she was only feeling rested because of some very unhappy events. Opening her eyes, she took in her surroundings - tall trees, dried leaves scattered in a carpet of crunchy, unclean foliage, an overcast sky and skeletal looking tree branches mere moments from giving way under the piled up snow on them. And no sense of time.

She regained most control over her peripherals and brought up her hands to shoo away the remnants of sleep in her eyes. It felt strange, like her limbs weren't her own. Rubbing her eyes, she was introduced to the acute physical aches on her head and back. Running her fingers over herself, she discovered more foliage, lots of dirt and dried blood amongst a scattering of bruises on the thus exposed skin. Though her clothes were still on her, they had put up some serious resistance against the elements and whatever else may have gracefully spared her from dying in her sleep. Her winter jacket was somewhat torn in strange patterns, and scarf a little tattered, but all in all, she seemed to be warm enough. Thankfully, sitting up was not much of a challenge. Everything else after that, was.

Recovering, she took in a wider range of her surroundings. Nothing but the unknown wilderness surrounded her. With tall cliffs behind her and a thick, grey forest on every other side. How deep had her fall been? Spotting red, shiny metal a little ways to her left, she began the arduous process of standing up. Her Mustang. She started a slow trot towards her undoubtedly-totaled vehicle. Walking felt like effort and after struggling for a few moments, her breathing was laboured and sweat layered her skin - even in this crisp cold.

The car was beyond totaled. Every recognisable piece a ways off. In this condition, she wondered if even the engine or it's parts could be salvaged to make any makeshift helping item. It couldn't. Every full circle and rummaging through of the machinery had proven to be futile.

Hopes dashed, Mikasa walked back to the clearing where she had woken up.

Perhaps, our mind stops working completely when we know that the situation we are in, is hopeless. Or perhaps, our mind stops just to restart so that we can carve a way out of our misery. Whatever the case, Mikasa sat down cross legged in the middle of the clearing and closed her eyes. Her body was still a bit shaky and a lot of supporting and leaning marked her walk to and from the mess of her car. Sitting down was less of a choice and more of a need. Hands in a fist supporting her face as she breathed in and out in slow, deliberate movements, she let herself think.

She was fully conscious now and her memories were coming back to her. She had been driving in the rain, the car had skidded and she had lost control of her steering at the curve. None of that could have ended well. And yet, here she was, survivor of a lengthy fall, car destroyed but she, still safe and alive. She would not give up so easily. She could not remember herself walking, or crawling, out of the car to this clear bed of dried grass and shrubbery, but she had made it. Her breaths extended and became more purposeful. As assuring as this was - to know what had happened, she was also rapidly realising that a lot more could happen. A lot more that could be worse than what already had come to pass.

She had no idea of the day, time or place. She had been unconscious for a long time - that much was obvious, but for how long? She knew survival strategies from camping experiences and her general keen common sense. But not knowing anything about her environment was not a good start to go wildberry-picking. Or making a hut in a clearing where any ferocious animal could stop by for a feast of soft human flesh. But she had to start walking in some direction, make some assessments, learn where she was. For all she knew, a highway might just be a few kilometres away...

She stood up, brushing the back of her pants off and finger-combing her hair to lose how-many-ever stray leaves she could. And started walking, to her right this time. The car was stuck in thickets she was not keen on clearing.

Crunching shriveled and withered flora underneath her heavy boots, moving branches out of her face and shivering when any drop of the melting snow would drip onto her open cuts, she was well on her way to...somewhere, when she felt it.

A pair of eyes behind her.

 _How_ she felt it was a mystery, and her rapid swivelling to catch the threat - for she definitely felt a chill down her spine - did not yield anything other than reminders of her aching body. She was certain that there was a presence of something, something was watching her and that terrified her. It would be a matter of seconds before she walked to her death if there _was_ something watching her.

Of course, standing there waiting for _it_ to come up and greet her with hunting-specialised teeth was not a welcoming thought either. So, she kept walking. More alert, more nervous and certainly a little fidgety, she kept walking wherever her feet would take her. That feeling never left her, but strangely enough, she never felt anything again and encountered no dangers. The only animals around her were a distant deer, a few migratory birds pausing in their paths or the occasional rodent-like creature, but nothing to be afraid of.

Hours must have passed. For she was now sweating and hungry. She couldn't stop since, she had not made it to anywhere remotely promising civilisation or human beings. The sky was darkening although the sun was still out there somewhere. Mikasa sat down by a tree - the one without any branches; great! She would need to find a place to sleep, sooner than later and a high enough tree branch was her only option at survival. Her body couldn't take much more. Closing her eyes, she let her back fall against the tree and the sweat on her brow roll down in a slow crawl...she could almost feel it's path down the side of her face and somehow, a concentration so deep relaxed her enough to slacken her tensed shoulders and regulate her breathing. It was good to breathe the cool air, the smell unique to the forest, the pure white snow and so much more...

With those thoughts, she slipped into a light slumber owing to her tiredness and un-manifested stress. When cognizance returned, she panicked _knowing_ that night had fallen, even before she had opened her eyes. Yet, she forced them open.

Almost immediately wishing that she hadn't.

There, a mere two feet away from her, stood a white wolf - tall and strong. It's gigantic body was covered in long, shiny fur that seemed to command majestic reverence. Eyes as dark as the night that contrasted this creature's stance stared straight into Mikasa's.

She wasn't the type to scream, but the small yelp and the building fear in her heart turned into thunder in her ears and a dizzying sense of fear gripped her rigidly. She couldn't move, she couldn't even breathe and she couldn't look away from the beast.

And when the beating of her heart showed no signs of abating, the wolf stepped forward. Just a couple of steps, but it was enough to break her reverie and slowly try to move. As she tried drawing her legs into a position for standing up, she felt a light weight on them. She was too cautious to look down, but her hands made quick work of the item, and she discovered a raggedy piece of cloth. That she _definitely_ had not had or seen anywhere. A flick of her eyes cast down verified the cloth and the fact that it was draped over her. And looking up again, Mikasa realised that her heart had finally stopped hammering.

Which brought in a flurry of new questions - had the wolf covered her while she was sleeping? Why hadn't it attacked her - her fear could have been smelt by the ravenous beasts in the next galaxy over, she was certain? What kind of a lunatic tried to "humanise" a wild animal?

She was still staring at it. With a trembling voice, Mikasa decided to plead insanity for a chance to be not killed, "D-did you..give me..th-this?" In response, it nodded.

She was stunned into silence. It had responded to her. Hadn't it? Maybe she was hallucinating, or still asleep and dreaming, or perhaps the fall was finally taking it's toll. Enormous wolves did not come prancing in, or, well, sneaking in to rescue people in the middle of nowhere. Did wolves like this one even exist?

As time passed, she eased. She let her eyes wander. She breathed normally and calmed down in general. The animal sensed it too. And remained standing guard. Mikasa was not foolish enough to ruin her luck and attempt a run or any major movement, for that matter. So, she resigned to small tasks - playing with leaves, looking at the wolf, looking at the sky, peering up at the trees and so on. It was in the middle of this mind-numbing game of patience, when the wolf decided to relax as well and just sit down, but not before advancing towards her a little more. Such that, when fully lying on the ground, it's snout almost touched Mikasa's folded legs. She stared at it for another long while it inhaled and exhaled with eyes closed.

In a flash of, what she could later only name as, insanity, she reached out and touched it's cold, wet and black nose. It's eyes shot open instantly and teeth bared involuntarily, but after a huff or two, it calmed down while her hand still remained and the pounding in her heart revisited her. She stared at it with wide eyes, incapable of moving, yet again. But as the wolf regained serenity, so did she. And petted his nose gently. It was giving her consent to touch itself perhaps, because the large, deep eyes closed as Mikasa's hand moved from it's nose to the middle of it's eyes.

 _He_ opened his eyes sharply, this time with less shock and more affirmation, when Mikasa uttered her next words, "Your name is Levi."

 **A/N: Hello, my dearies! I am back with yet another RivaMika-ish-thing-story-stuff...that will need a sequel, because my imagination has no leash and I, no discipline. Yay!**

 **And because titans weren't enough, I decided to create Wolf!Levi. Aren't you glad!**

 **Hope you enjoy the read. :)**


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